APRIL 1, 2011:NWLP
3/29/11
10:10 AM
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A workers must stand together
By JEFF JOHNSON
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is
attempting to accomplish what has been
a long-term right-wing strategy to break
public employee unions. Folks like the
billionaire Koch brothers, Karl Rove
and others who funded Scott Walker
and the Tea Party candidates in 2010
know that if public employee unions
can be broken then the labor movement
can be broken as well.
What is at stake here is the funda-
mental values of who we are as a peo-
ple, our democratic rights, and who gets
to set the terms of dialogue. This is an
attack on the middle class and the
American dream. But if the voices of
union workers can be stifled, it is also
an attack on the poor, the vulnerable
and immigrants as well.
Workers and public servants in par-
ticular did not create the deficits that
many of our states are facing today. In
fact, on average public employees earn
about 10 to 12 percent lower wages
than their private sector counterparts,
and they receive modest pensions. In
Washington State, public employees
have accepted a 3 percent wage cut over
the next two years as well as a 25 per-
cent increase in their health care pre-
mium and co-pay shares.
For decades in our country there was
an implicit “social contract” that was
based on shared prosperity — with ris-
ing productivity, there would be a rising
standard of living. Workers would be
able to afford homes and put their kids
through college — health care, sick
leave, vacation and pensions were part
of the package as well.
The “social contract” is over, even
though productivity and profits con-
tinue to rise for banks and corporations.
The “Great Recession” was created
by Wall Street banks and insurance
companies. They turned our economy
into a giant casino, where they bet our
manufacturing base, our infrastructure,
education and health care funding
against the house. They won; we lost.
Unemployment is at 9.2 percent in
Washington state, unless you are a per-
son of color, and then it ranges from 25
to 75 percent, or unless you work in the
building and construction trades, where
the unemployment rate ranges from 30
to 60 percent. We have the highest
poverty rate in Washington state since
the 1950s; foreclosures are going
through the roof; and as a nation we
have the most unequal distribution of
income and wealth since the Gilded
Age of the late 19th century.
This is the backdrop they created for
trying to set private sector workers
Teachers, unions blamed for
factors beyond their control
To The Editor:
I am baffled and frustrated with how
teachers are being held accountable and
even blamed for circumstances beyond
their control.
We cut funding for public education,
resulting in larger class sizes, and ex-
pect the student-to-teacher ratio to have
no impact on our young learners’ suc-
cess.
We ask teachers to reach children
who come to school hungry, tired and
scared because of complicated family
lives or because they are sleeping in
homeless shelters or cars.
We expect teachers to successfully
deal with students with physical, emo-
tional and mental challenges, the same
APRIL 1, 2011
children who often have little or no ac-
cess to health care or medication.
Then, when students do not meet ed-
ucational standards, we flunk the
teacher rather than looking at the myr-
iad of other ways that our society has
failed these children.
I am not a teacher, but I have many
friends and family members who are,
and I know that they do the best they
can within a very flawed system.
Our focus must shift from blaming
teachers, and teachers’ unions, to look-
ing at how to meet the needs of the chil-
dren and families who are most at risk.
Debra Kidney
AFSCME
Portland
against public sector workers, and non-
immigrant workers against immigrant
workers. These divide-and-conquer tac-
tics are as old as capitalism. As work-
ers, we need to be smarter and stand in
solidarity.
The policies that led to the recession
and the acceleration of wealth to the top
include:
• Deregulating the financial industry
• Creating a tax code filled with ex-
emptions for the wealthy
• Rewarding companies that off-
shored jobs
• Creating trade policies that reward
multinational corporations but de-in-
dustrialized our country, turning the
phrase “Made in America” into a relic
of the past
• Financing two wars simultaneously
Notice, you don’t see funding for af-
fordable housing, home care services,
early childhood education or public
safety in the list above. But the Repub-
lican governors of Wisconsin, Ohio, et
al, would have us pay the cost of deficits
by cutting programs that our most vul-
nerable need, contracting out public
employee jobs or simply removing the
rights of workers to have a voice at the
workplace.
They should be looking toward the
wealthy and corporate America to fix
the deficits that they created. The banks
are sitting on over a trillion dollars of
assets that they are not reinvesting in
America, while corporate America
raked in nearly $1.7 trillion in profits
during the third quarter of 2010. This is
the most profitable corporate America
O PEN
F ORUM
has ever been.
We need, as labor, to stand in soli-
darity and say no to budget cuts that
punish the vulnerable, no to foreclo-
sures, no to union busting, no to con-
tracting out, and no to pitting workers
against each other and non-immigrants
against immigrants.
We need a moral budget and revenue
document that fills the deficit hole by
declaring a moratorium on tax loop-
holes.
(Editor’s Note: Jeff Johnson is pres-
ident of the Washington State Labor
Council, AFL-CIO.)
Consider pol’s trade policy before voting
To The Editor:
This is a copy of a letter I wrote to
President Obama:
“Dear Mr. President,
Regarding your weekly radio ad-
dress, may I remind you that a half-truth
is no better than a lie. I refer to your en-
couraging comments about the growth
in U.S. exports, while failing to mention
that they continue to be outpaced by im-
ports.
Following the recent closure of a pa-
per mill here in Oregon, the head of the
local union representing those workers
had a article in the Northwest Labor
Press showing how the closure was the
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
result of failed U.S. trade policies. Just
as the Tea Party served notice on Re-
publicans that they will no longer be
getting a vote simply because they have
an “R” after their name, the days of you
and your party getting labors’ vote sim-
ply because you have a “D” after your
name are coming to an end.
For a growing number of us, the cri-
teria is — we will vote for NO free-
traders, regardless of party! In the areas
of exportation of manufacturing jobs,
and failing to close the border to slow
the onslaught of illegal aliens compet-
ing for the crumbs that are left, it has
become painfully obvious that your ad-
ministration is no better than the Bush
Administration.
Henry Ford was once asked why he
paid his workers so much, He replied:
“So they can afford to buy my cars.” I
hold this truth to be self-evident — for a
nation’s economy to survive and thrive
long term, either Mr. Ford or the free-
traders and out-sourcers can be right —
NOT BOTH!
Thanks for listening.”
Dean Wolf
IBEW Local 48
Tigard, Oregon
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